«The Russians won’t allow them to do that,» Yang said. «The Chinese and the other members of the IPF will stop them.»
«Maybe,» said Hazard. «Maybe.» He felt a slight hint of nausea ripple in his stomach. Reaching up, he touched the slippery plastic of the medicine patch behind his ear.
«Do you think they could succeed?» Stromsen asked.
«What’s important is, do they think they can succeed? There are still hundreds of ballistic missiles on Earth. Thousands of hydrogen warheads. Buckbee and his cohorts apparently believe that if they can take control of a portion of the ABM network, they can threaten a nuclear strike against the nations that don’t go along with them.»
«But the other nations will strike back and order their people in the IPF not to intercept their strikes,» said Yang.
«It will be nuclear war,» Stromsen said. «Just as if the IPF never existed.»
«Worse,» Yang pointed out, «because first there’ll be a shoot-out on each one of these battle stations.»
«That’s madness!» said Stromsen.
«That’s what we’ve got to prevent,» Hazard said grimly.
An orange light began to blink on the comm console. Yang snapped her attention to it. «Incoming message from the Graham, sir.»
Hazard nodded. «Put it on the main screen.»
Cardillo’s crafty features appeared on the screen. He should have been still on leave back on Earth, but instead he was smiling crookedly at Hazard.
«Well, Johnny, I guess by now you’ve figured out that we mean business.»
«And so do we. Give it up, Vince. It’s not going to work.»
With a small shake of his head Cardillo answered, «It’s already working, Johnny boy. Two of the Russian battle stations are with us. So’s the Wood. The Chinks and Indians are holding out but the European station is going along with us.»
Hazard said, «So you’ve got six of the nine stations.»
«So far.»
«Then you don’t really need Hunter. You can leave us alone.»
Pursing his lips for a moment, Cardillo replied, «I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, Johnny. We want Hunter. We can’t afford to have you rolling around like a loose cannon. You’re either with us or against us.»
«I’m not with you,» Hazard said flatly.
Cardillo sighed theatrically. «John, there are twenty other officers and crew on your station …»
«Fourteen now,» Hazard corrected.
«Don’t you think you ought to give them a chance to make a decision about their own lives?»
Despite himself, Hazard broke into a malicious grin. «Am I hearing you straight, Vince? You’re asking the commander of a vessel to take a vote?»
Grinning back at him, Cardillo admitted, «I guess that was kind of dumb. But you do have their lives in your hands, Johnny.»
«We’re not knuckling under, Vince. And you’ve got twenty-some lives aboard the Graham, you know. Including your own. Better think about that.»
«We already have, Johnny. One of those lives is Jonathan Hazard, Jr. He’s right here on the bridge with me. A fine officer, Johnny. You should be proud of him.»
A hostage, Hazard realized. They’re using Jon Jr. as a hostage.
«Do you want to talk with him?» Cardillo asked.
Hazard nodded.
Cardillo slid out of view and a younger man’s face appeared on the screen. Jon Jr. looked tense, strained. This isn’t any easier for him than it is for me, Hazard thought. He studied his son’s face. Youthful, clear-eyed, a square-jawed honest face. Hazard was startled to realize that he had seen that face before, in his own Academy graduation photo.
«How are you, son?»
«I’m fine, Dad. And you?»
«Are we really on opposite sides of this?»
Jon Jr.’s eyes flicked away for a moment, then turned back to look squarely at his father’s. «I’m afraid so, Dad.»
«But why?» Hazard felt genuinely bewildered that his son did not see things the way he did.
«The IPF is dangerous,» Jon Jr. said. «It’s the first step toward a world government. The Third World nations want to bleed the industrialized nations dry. They want to grab all our wealth for themselves. The first step is to disarm us, under the pretense of preventing nuclear war. Then, once we’re disarmed, they’re going to take over everything—using the IPF as their armed forces.»
«That’s what they’ve told you,» Hazard said.
«That’s what I know, Dad. It’s true. I know it is.»
«And your answer is to take over the IPF and use it as your armed forces to control the rest of the world, is that it?»
«Better us than them.»
Hazard shook his head. «They’re using you, son. Cardillo and Buckbee and the rest of those maniacs; you’re in with a bunch of would-be Napoleons.»
Jon Jr. smiled pityingly at his father. «I knew you’d say something like that.»
Hazard put up a beefy hand. «I don’t want to argue with you, son. But I can’t go along with you.»
«You’re going to force us to attack your station.»
«I’ll fight back.»
His son’s smile turned sardonic. «Like you did in Brussels?»
Hazard felt it like a punch in his gut. He grunted with the pain of it. Wordlessly he reached out and clicked off the comm screen.
Brussels.
They had thought it was just another one of those endless Easter Sunday demonstrations. A peace march. The Greens, the Nuclear Winter freaks, the Neutralists, peaceniks of one stripe or another. Swarms of little old ladies in their Easter frocks, limping old war veterans, kids of all ages. Teenagers, lots of them. In blue jeans and denim jackets. Young women in shorts and tight T-shirts.
The guards in front of NATO’s headquarters complex took no particular note of the older youths and women mixed in with the teens. They failed to detect the hard, calculating eyes and the snubnosed guns and grenades hidden under jackets and sweaters.
Suddenly the peaceful parade dissolved into a mass of screaming wild people. The guards were cut down mercilessly and the cadre of terrorists fought their way into the main building of NATO headquarters. They forced dozens of peaceful marchers to go in with them, as shields and hostages.
Captain J. W. Hazard, USN, was not on duty that Sunday, but he was in his office nevertheless, attending to some paperwork that he wanted out of the way before the start of business on Monday morning. Unarmed, he was swiftly captured by the terrorists, beaten bloody for the fun of it, and then locked in a toilet. When the terrorists realized that he was the highest-ranking officer in the building, Hazard was dragged out and commanded to open the security vault where the most sensitive NATO documents were stored.
Hazard refused. The terrorists began shooting hostages. After the second murder Hazard opened the vault for them. Top-secret battle plans, maps showing locations of nuclear weapons, and hundreds of other documents were taken by the terrorists and never found, even after an American-led strike force retook the building in a bloody battle that killed all but four of the hostages.
Hazard stood before the blank comm screen for a moment, his softbooted feet not quite touching the deck, his mind racing.
They’ve even figured that angle, he said to himself. They know I caved in at Brussels and they expect me to cave in here. Some sonofabitch has grabbed my psych records and come to the conclusion that I’ll react the same way now as I did then. Some sonofabitch. And they got my son to stick the knife in me.
The sound of the hatch clattering open stirred Hazard. Feeney floated through the hatch and grabbed an overhead handgrip.
«The crew’s at battle stations, sir,» he said, slightly breathless. «Standing by for further orders.»